Indicass's Saviors
by Seamus MacHenry
Summary: The remains of a merc unit trapped on a planet controlled by the Capellan Confederation. Can they successfully fight against and beat the Capellan garrison with guerilla tactics and luck?
1. Chapter 1

**December 12, 3062 **

**0300 Hours**

**Indicass, St. Ives Compact**

**North of Galkin**

Alexi Holt adjusted his grip on the stock of his modified Federated Long rifle. With a night vision scope and in-built insulation for protection against the freezing climate of Indicass' northern hemisphere, the rifle was ideal for sniping in cold weather.

Alexi tried to keep from shivering, but the cold had long since seeped its way into his white and gray cold weather fatigues. A shiver ran up and down his spice, forcing him to shake. A small amount of snow fell of his back and on to the cold, hard frozen ground.

He dropped his head back down to stare through the scope again. Less than one hundred meters away lay the perimeter of the mining town of Galkin.

Indicass exported a large amount of minerals required for the production of military equipment and was therefore a prime target for conquest.

In face, Indicass had been the target of conquest. Less than six months ago, the Capellans had assaulted and taken control of Indicass. It had been less of a fight and more of an organized slaughter. A mercenary garrison of one mech company, two armor companies, and one company of infantry against a reinforced regiment of mechs with a full two regiments of armor and infantry support. It had only taken three days for the garrison to be beaten and what was left of it to be forced to go to ground.

Alexi focused himself to the task at hand. Peering through the scope, he could see as plainly in the dark as though it was bright daylight. He could see a Capellan mech lance patrol lance in the far distance.

"How far away are those mechs?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

"'Bout one thousand meters," came a reply. "You're clear, we'll be long gone before they get here."

"Don, you still talk like a mech jock. Shut it."

Even thought Alexi did not turn to look at Don Walker, his spotter, he knew that he must be red with not only cold, but also embarrassment. A mechwarrior by training, Alexi chose him as a spotter over a trained infantry veteran because of his dedication and knowledge of Indicass' terrain. His only problem was he still talked as freely as he had when he was still in that walking trashcan of his.

"Eleven o'clock. One-five-oh meters. Left of the red brick building."

Without a word, Alexi followed Don's directions and spotted an infantry patrol. Two men wearing standard Capellan infantry body armor walked through the dark streets of Galkin cradling assault rifles in their arms. Both were completely oblivious to the fact that a highly trained sniper had the both of them in his sights.

He dropped the crosshairs of his rifle on to the trooper closest to the building. The soldiers walked slowly down the snow-covered street. He could see his target's mouth moving, presumably talking to his partner, but Alexi, who spoke no Chinese and could not read lips, knew not about what.

He dropped his finger to the trigger, exhaling deeply as he did so. Slowly, he added a lead to his target to compensate for the distance and movement of the target and also the slight wind. He took a lungful of air and gently began to pull the trigger.

"Hold!" Don hissed. Alexi released both the trigger and he breath he had been holding.

"Target of opportunity! Two o'clock, there's a mech powering down. Clint, canopy open."

Alexi moved his rifle to the two o'clock position quickly. Sure enough, a Capellan _Clint_ painted green and black of the Capellan Confederation had cracked open its canopy. The pilot was slipping out of his cooling vest and replacing it with a winter jacket and pants before he would leave the cockpit.

For a moment, Alexi wondered why the pilot would open up his cockpit to the cold air and then change.

_Oh well, _he thought. _That pilot will never live to be taught any common sense._

Moving the crosshairs of his scope over the man's chest, Alexi took a deep breath and held it. As he steadied his rifle, he took careful aim, compensating for the slight crosswind. The pilot of the _Clint_ stopped moving for one fateful second too long. Alexi took his chance and squeezed the trigger.

The sharp crack of the rifle sounded through the forest in which Alexi and Don were hidden and through the town of Galkin. The stock of the rifle kicked into Alexi's shoulder. Through the scope, Alexi watched the pilot jerk and fall backward as the round hit him squarely in the chest. The pilot's white winter coat was splattered with blood and bone, as was the cockpit behind him.

Alexi could hear someone yelling the warning of sniper. Everywhere, people were running for cover.

"Eleven o'clock again. Those troopers are still there."

Alexi moved back to his previous targets. The two Capellan troopers were trying to use the brick building as cover, and failing miserably. He dropped the crosshairs onto the first trooper.

Before he could squeeze the trigger, Alexi felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Cappie infantry, fifty meters on the right. Let's move before they spot us."

Without a word, Alexi and Don slowly got up and retreated back through the forest, the darkness of the pre dawn hiding them and their tracks from the Capellans.


	2. Chapter 2

**December 12, 3062**

**0700 Hours**

**Indicass, St. Ives Compact**

**Somewhere in the Great Forest**

Alexi and Don slowly entered the small, yet protected clearing. A trio of makeshift dwellings surrounded a small clear area in the center. A small fire was burning there, and a man sat upon a rock next to it, his hands extended over the fire to warm them.

As Alexi and Don entered the clearing, the third man looked up and moved one hand to the sub-machine gun that lay next to him.

"You guys are late," the man said.

"We may be late, but we're not Cappies," Alexi said, "so you can leave your Imperator alone, Ken."

Tossing a glace at Ken's fingers extended and looming over the pistol grip of the Imperator sub-machine gun, Alexi walked over to the warm fire.

"Bag any of Sunny's finest?" Ken asked. He, like many others from the Federated Suns used Sun-Tzu Liao's unofficial nickname.

"One mechwarrior," Alexi answered. Ken looked up, his eyes wide with astonishment. "I would've gotten a pair of troopers, but Don here made me stop."

"One mechwarrior is worth ten of those guys anyhow," Don called form his little tree branch structure. "And you're worth at least ten mechwarriors."

"Maybe so," Alexi replied. "But they still have almost a full regiment of mech jocks on planet. One more dead pilot is not going to stop Sunny very soon."

"One less mech in the field can make all the difference." Ken countered.

Kenneth Jones drew himself to full height with his last statement. He was a tall man at six and a half feet tall. A career long infantryman, his white skin had been tanned heavily. His hair was cropped closely to his scalp, but his face was clean-shaven. With over ten years of combat experience, he was one of the few real veterans left in the guerilla fighting.

Ken bent over a grabbed a collapsible pot that hung over the small fire, attached to a small, yet thick branch. After pouring some of the pot's contents into two metal mugs, he offered one each to Alexi and Don. Both of them heartily accepted and drank deeply of the steaming liquid.

Donald Walker, a mechwarrior by training, took a seat on the rock that, until then, Ken had been occupying. A small man at five-foot eight inches tall, he did not look the military sort. His thin face, pale skin and mousy hair, coupled with long, thin fingers, made people think him a tech, or at best a desk jockey. But even in the winter weather outfit that he wore, Alexi could spot the ends of two scars, just under Don's chin. Don's left side was heavily scarred in fact. It had happened some four years ago when a missile had hit the left side of his_Commando_'s head. The explosion had turned the armor of the mech's head into shrapnel that had been sent into the cockpit. The coolant vest he had been wearing along with a good deal of luck had been the only thing that had saved his life.

Alexi stood next to the fire across from Don. Alexi Hold had lightly tanned skin with light blond hair, a legacy of his Russian ancestry. He was just over six feet tall and looked rather average for an infantryman. However, his eyes were bright, lightning blue. So blue, that it had been a common joke during basic training that he would always get spotted by enemies in the dark because they would glow so bright.

"When do we move out?" Alexi asked as he lifted his arms up, stretching.

"In a few hours," Ken answered. "There are some thick clouds moving in that should prevent any fly boys they send our way from spotting us. If we're really lucky there will be some snowfall that will cover our tracks if they send ground pounders. For now, I suggest that you two get some rest now. It's a long march back to home."

"Yeah, good idea. Say two hour shifts?"

"Okay. I'll take the first. Don, can you take the second? Dan?"

Alexi and Ken both looked to where Don lay under his branch and leaf structure. Underneath that and a small water-resistant blanket lay the sleeping for of Don.

Alexi chuckled to himself. "Let him sleep. I'll take the second watch."

With that Alexi went and wriggled into his own little shelter. Within minutes he was asleep. The abyss took him as he fell from reality and reached, as one ancient Terran author once wrote about, the Dreamlands.


	3. Chapter 3

December 12, 3062 

**0830 Hours**

**Indicass, St. Ives Compact**

**Somewhere in the Great Forest**

Alexi was being shaken awake. He opened his eyes and tried to speak but a hand was pressed over his mouth, muffling his voice. He could see a few slivers of sky through the branches that made his lean to. It was a dark gray, one of the first signs of an oncoming storm.

His view of the sky was obscured by something living. Brown eyes stared into his own. He recognized the face of Ken Jones.

Ken put a finger to his lips in the universal sign of silence. As quietly as he could, he whispered, "Enemy infantry, 150 meters."

Alexi nodded in response. Ken took his hand away from Alexi's mouth and turned away from Alexi and slowly moved toward Dan's structure. Slowly, Alexi sat up, unbuttoning his hip holster and pulling out an auto pistol.

As he slowly crawled into the clearing, Alexi eased the pistol out of its holster. He checked the magazine and found it full. Ten rounds. He pushed the magazine back into the grip, pulling back the slide and slowly and quietly as he could. With his right thumb, he pulled back the safety.

A few feet away, Ken and Don stood up and leaned against a tree. Ken held his Imperator against his chest. Don also brought up and loaded a submachine gun.

Catching his eye, Ken motioned to the west, behind the tree that he and Don were leaning against. Alexi tried to see out of the clearing, but it was too dark to see anything. He reached down and picked up the rifle that had been leaning up against the tree. He replaced the pistol in its holster and then lifted the rifle to his shoulder. Turning on the night vision scope, he could see something more out of the clearing.

In the darkness outside the clearing, Alexi could make out the moving shapes of enemy infantry. Alexi slowly exhaled and then took a deep breath. A man walked into his crosshairs. He pulled the trigger. An explosion of sound erupted in the clearing. A clattering of birds sounded as many flew away, frightened by the noise.

The man in the crosshairs fell forward, a large portion of his chest missing. Alexi, Don, and Ken all threw themselves at the ground as gunfire exploded from outside the clearing. Bullets rained into the clearing, chipping away bits of the trees and ripping leaves.

The sound of pumping blood was deafening to Alexi. He could see the frightened faces of both Don and Ken, using their tree as cover. Ken's lips were moving, but Alexi could not hear what he was saying. Even the sound of gunfire was reduced to pops.

Slowly, Alexi began to regain his hearing. He could still hear and even feel his heart thumping underneath his rib cage. It seemed like it took hours to hear Ken's warning, but it was only a few seconds after the gunfire had started.

"Get down!"

Without a second though, Alexi through his torso down onto the cold, hard ground. He thought he heard a ground followed by a series of small pops. Even with his arms over his eyes and his eyes closed, he could see that there was a powerful increase in the amount of light beyond him.

_A flashbang,_ he reasoned quickly.

"Alexi, move it," someone shouted to him.

Jumping to his feet, he saw Don running toward the other end of the clearing, being careful to keep as many trees between him and the enemy's guns as he could. With one arm across Don's shoulder, Ken ran next to him, half bent forward. Alexi followed them, zigzagging from one tree to the next. Bullets whizzed past him, hitting trees, dirt, or nothing at all.

It was difficult to follow Don and Ken once he cleared the forest, but he joined up with them after less than a minute.

They continued moving as fast as they could through the thick forest, heading east, away from the clearing. After an hour of running through thick forest and snow, the three men feel to the ground behind a large tree. They were all panting from the long and hard run.

Alexi looked down at his hand, noticing for the first time how hard he was gripping his rifle. All the knuckles on his right hand were bone white from his tight grip. He forced himself to ease his grip and laid the rifle across his lap. He threw his head back and rested it on the frozen bark of the tree. His breath came in heaves and left in clouds of steam.

A wet cough made Alexi turn his head to his two companions. The snow at Ken's feet was a bright red.

"Dammit," Alexi cursed. "Why didn't you say you were hit, Ken?"

"You might have left me there with a grenade and a feeling that I'd dying for a cause," Ken replied with a hint of dark humor in his voice. "Which, I might add, if you try and do now, I'll shoot you in the gut to match my bullet hole." A bloody grin formed on Ken's face. The grin was transformed into a look of extreme pain as Don, a piece of his coat in his hand, applied pressure to the wound.

Alexi turned to Don. "Will he make it back Home?"

"I dunno. He won't last long in the cold unless he has medical attention. Hell, he won't last long anywhere without medical attention. It's a three hour run back Home. If we hurry, we may get there in two."

"Well, let's get Ken here ready for a long and hard run." With that, Alexi ripped a long and thin strip out of his old and tattered uniform he was wearing under his winter outfit. Using the strip, he wrapped it around Ken's stomach and tied the cloth Dan had been using to staunch the flow of blood with to the wound. Ken let out a groan as Alexi tightened it.

He got up and threw the rifle onto his back and with Don's help; they picked up Ken and began moving east again. Another half hour of running brought them to a large break in the woods. It was a good hundred meters to the other side and to the safety of thick forest.

"Hold it," Alexi told Don quietly. He carefully stepped forward to the edge of the forest. He looked left and right. All he saw was an empty clearing covered in fresh white snow.

"Looks clear, but lets move fast. We can beat infantry, but we don't have much a chance against a hover tank of any kind."

As fast as they could, the three men ran into the opening. From afar, they looked like three gray spirits, floating across the empty expanse. As they moved up a short hill to the forest, Ken collapsed in their arms and fell to the snow. Gunshots rang out as Don and Alexi were bending down to pick up their fallen comrade. A few bullets ricocheted off nearby trees. Wrenching Ken to his feet, the two men pulled him into the forest and they were off again.

Alexi could hear the shouts of the Capellan infantry close on their tails. While they were not as familiar with the local terrain, they did not have to carry a wounded comrade. They were closing fast, and when they caught up to Alexi and his fellow soldiers, they would not be very merciful towards them for sure.

Beside him, Alexi could hear Don's heaving breaths. He was not built for hours of running in the snow while half carrying half dragging an injured friend. Alexi could hear his own heavy breaths, and feel the burning in his lungs. His legs ached and arms were growing numb. He could hear the rustle of fallen leaves being crushed underfoot by their pursuers along with the crunch of snow beneath combat boot. They couldn't be more than five meters behind them.

Alexi's next step put his foot in contact with a fallen branch or rock buried under just a few inches of snow. He stumbled and fought to keep his footing. He instinctively bent forward to regain his footing as his legs fought to catch up with the rest of his body. He was slowing down the other two men, endangering them, but he could not force himself to let go so they could keep moving.

Ignoring the pain he was in, Alexi managed to regain his balance and kept moving. But now, the shouts and crunching of the Capellan troops behind them was much clearer and louder. They were within spitting distance now.

With his free hand, Alexi worked off a grenade that was attached to his coat.

_If they are going to catch us, we're going to take a few more with us_, Alexi thought. He had always hated the Cappies, and relished the thought of dying while taking a few more with him, as his last spit in their face.

"Down!"

The cry was so sudden that Alexi thought it was one of his old drill sergeants come back from the dead to haunt him. It sounded so much like one of his mentors and trainers that Alexi was compelled to obey. He threw his weight forward, pulling Ken and then Don onto the snow.

When his head hit the ground, it pushed into the ice, slamming against something hard hidden underneath. His world grew cold and dark, and before long he lapsed into unconsciousness.


End file.
